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A love song of Ottoman period

Üsküdara Gideriken (When Going to Üsküdar) – A love song of Ottoman period

This is a Turkish folk song about the love between a man & a woman from Ottoman era. Our guide in Istanbul Yeliz Bolsoy was describing this story and told that it has a song too. When requested, Yeliz was kind enough to sing it for me. The bonus was that she translated the song in English !

The story goes like this.
Most of the rich women in Ottoman period had male secretaries and many of them had fallen for their secretaries. The lovers in Ottoman era were not allowed to meet freely & openly. Meeting one’s lover was difficult. So they had adopted some signals to let the other person know about their feelings.

The woman would walk on the road and the man, a few steps behind her. The woman would drop a kerchief or tissue with some Turkish candies called Lokum in it. If the person walking behind the woman had similar feelings, he would pick up the kerchief. Later he would bring it to the woman along with those candies.

Üsküdar is a large and densely populated district and municipality of Istanbul and is an important place for its mosques on the hill.

You can listen to the original song here but I think I like Yeliz’s wonderful voice more. 🙂

What do you say? Which song do you like more?

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12 thoughts on “A love song of Ottoman period”

  1. The tune is so Indian! Or maybe, I’ve listened to Pritam’s Turkish-inspired songs one time too many. Anyway, by the end of the song, I was putting Hindi words and humming along 🙂

  2. You wont believe it. I have heard it in India in Radio a couple of decades back 🙂 🙂 in fact many times.

    I never knew it was from Turkey let alone that it was a love song.

    Liked it !

  3. Arvi,
    Yes you are right. I don’t believe you having heard in Indian radio. 😀
    It’s a Turkish song !

    Everybody is liking this song and Yeliz has very sweet voice too. 🙂

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